Click here for an excerpt from the 2010 State of the Future Report summarizing the 15 Global Challenges for Humanity.

The 15 Global Challenges provide a framework to assess the global and local prospects for humanity. Their description, with a range of views and actions addressed to each, enriched with regional views and progress assessments are updated each year since 1996 and published in the annual State of the Future report. The short description of the challenges appears in the print version of the report, while a detailed, more complex one is on the CD that accompanies the report. The detailed version of the Global Challenges available in the CD's Chapter 1 are totaling over 1,300 pages. For each Challenge, there is a more comprehensive overview, alternative views or additional comments from participants on the overview, regional perspectives and relevant information from recent literature, a set of actions with a range of views from interviews with decisionmakers to address the challenge, additional actions and views on those actions, and suggested indicators to measure progress or lack thereof.

The Challenges are interdependent: an improvement in one makes it easier to address others; deterioration in one makes it harder to address others. Arguing whether one is more important than another is like arguing that the human nervous system is more important than the respiratory system. These Challenges are transnational in nature and transinstitutional in solution. They cannot be addressed by any government or institution acting alone. They require collaborative action among governments, international organizations, corporations, universities, NGOs, and creative individuals. Although listed in sequence, Challenge 1 on sustainable development and climate change is no more or less important than Challenge 15 on global ethics. There is greater consensus about the global situation as expressed in these Challenges and the actions to address them than is evident in the news media.

We are welcoming input on the description and update of the challenges. Those will help improve the next edition of the State of the Future report. Please email your comments and suggestions to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Breaking the Mould

Futures Research Methodology

Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0 is the largest, most comprehensive collection of internationally peer-reviewed handbook on methods and tools to explore future possibilities ever assembled in one resource.